Are you using English Possessives Correctly? (video and exercise)

English possessives are a bit different than they are in most other languages In our classes, we see even advanced students making mistakes with possessives, or using them in ways that are maybe technically correct, but sound strange to a native English speaker.

For example, which of the sentences below is correct?

My husband’s uncle is coming to dinner.

The uncle of my husband is coming to dinner.

Watch the video for the correct answer, and to learn more about English possessives.

Create possessive sentences from the words below. Write your answers in comments and we will respond.

Example: children/the/books/are/these > These are the children’s books.

1. company/computers/are/they/the

2. friend/that/my/dog/is

3. car/wife/where/my/is/?

4. president/interesting/speech/the/was

5. traffic/Los Angeles/bad/is

6. Usain Bolt/record/to beat/difficult/will be

7. atmosphere/great/for/the Olympics/London/has a

9. these/your son/glasses/are/?

10. food/what/like/is/London/?

Ok, that’s it. You can write your answers below. Contact us if you would like to schedule an English class.

marcotulioac@gmail.com

They are the company`s computers.
That is my dog`s friend.
Where is my wife`s car ?
The president`s was speech interesting.
Los Angeles` traffic is bad.
Usain Bolt`s will be difficult to beat record.
The Olympics` for London has a great atmosphere.
These are your son`s glasses.
What is London`s food like ?

LOIEnglish

Marco,
You are having some word order and sentence structure problems.
For example:
#2. Yes it is possible that your dog has a friend but a better sentence is:
That is my friend’s dog.
Your possessive comes before the noun. In the above sentence ‘friend’s’ is the possessive and ‘dog’ is the noun.
#4. In this sentence you separated or split the possessive ‘president’s’ from the noun ‘speech’ which is not possible. Here is the correct sentence: The president’s speech was interesting.
#6. Again in this sentence you split or separated the possessive word from the noun. The correct sentence is: Usain Bolt’s record will be difficult to beat.
#7. This is also incorrect can you try to write the correct sentence?
Take a look at our word order video, it may help you with the structure in English.